


Mirror, Mirror

by PinkRangerV



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy, Power Rangers in Space
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2848328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRangerV/pseuds/PinkRangerV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The queen gathers fish while Snow White locks herself away. AU, oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> liron-aria and I were talking. This happened.
> 
> This has a very strong theme of multiplicity. Typically, a person becomes a multiple system--i.e. has several alter-egos--when they develop dissasociative identity disorder, which is an entirely real mental illness. What Karone\Astronema experiences is a sort of offshoot of that, where she has two different *layers* of herself but not two distinct people in one body. This is based mostly off what I observed in canon, where Astronema and Karone read as almost different people--key word: almost. Sometimes she moves between the two seamlessly, like when she's trying to get Damon to be the head engineer, or when she's fighting herself. This is my guess at how she would eventually reconcile the two selves into one. It's set a bit after LG, when Karone is still living with her team.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Kendrix demands imperiously, staring at the hand mirror she’d picked up.

 

Maya and Karone are watching Kendrix retell the story of _Snow White_ with wide eyes. It’s entirely new to them both; apparently children are told this, on Earth, and there’s a Kerovian variant that Karone knows is similar.

 

“Not you, my queen, I’m sad to say,” Damon chants from behind the mirror, having joined in a whlie ago, “For Snow White yet lives with...uh...the dwarves-ay?”

 

Maya giggles, but Karone is enchanted. Something in the innocent princess tugs at Karone, the way she accepts every trap laid out; something in the proud queen tugs at something...darker in her. It’s not painful, the way these things can be sometimes, it just _pulls_ and _enchants_ and weaves the most compelling desire Karone’s felt since…

 

Well, actually, since a week ago, when she’d fallen in love with a popular novel series.

 

“Fie!” Kendrix scowls, tugging again at the dark part. “I’ll kill her this time, see if I don’t!” She sweeps the blanket that she’s turned into a cape over her shoulder, and stomps over to her cauldron--no, don’t stomp, never stomp, that’s what children do, part of Karone recites. Sweep. Move with grace. Dance lessons will help--stop stomping, Astronema!

 

She shakes away the nasty memory.

 

Something dark in her sweeps it away easily.

 

Karone shivers and turns her attention back to the story.

 

***

 

She should know better than to let her childself steer around magical objects!

 

Innocence and purity are good, but damnit, some things are dangerous. Astronema flips away from the mirror monster that’s just been created, reaching for her staff, not finding it, and cursing. She goes for her morpher instead. “Guys, there’s a mirror monster that just showed up!”

 

Leo and Mike both swear. _“We’re on our way!_ ” They chorus before cutting out.

 

The mirror monster laughs. “Look at you, split in two. Let me do you a favor.”

 

Astronema doesn’t wait for it--she just flicks her morpher.

 

The mirror monster is faster.

 

“You’ll thank me later!” She hears before--

 

***

 

\--the tearing _hurts_.

 

***

 

Karone wakes up slowly.

 

Someone wrapped her in a blanket. Someone...with black hair, with a staff…

 

She jolts up.

 

Astronema says nothing for a minute. Just...stares, out of the cave. “We can’t go back. They’ll kill us.”

 

“What? Who?” Karone’s voice doesn’t shake, and she’s proud of herself for it. She wraps the blanket around herself as she stands up. It makes her feel safer.

 

“Your _friends_.” Astronema sneers. She glances over her shoulder. “Don’t trust them. Not until we can unite again.”

 

Karone shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

 

“You’re me. I’m you.” Astronema explains. She turns around, but doesn’t puff up or posture, just leans against the wall. “That mirror monster split us apart. Until I can put us back together, we stay put and don’t draw attention to ourselves.”

 

Karone doesn’t get it for a minute, but then she does. “You’re my other half. My dark self!”

 

Astronema snorts. “Crude. I’m more complex than that.”

 

Karone shrugs. It’s all the same to her.

 

...And then it hits.

 

_She doesn’t have Astronema in her anymore._

 

…

 

Her world tilts.

 

The first thought is _run_ and she’s moving before she knows it but then she stops because it’s not running she wants. She doesn’t know what she wants.

 

Astronema looks at her patiently.

 

“...You tucked me in.” Karone asks.

 

Astronema smiles. It’s...sad, Karone realizes. “Of course, little sister.”

 

Karone knows what she wants then.

 

She waits. Sits down, eventually pretends to sleep, because waiting takes _forever_ and she feels so impatient without Astronema’s training and history telling her how to wait. But finally Astronema’s attention lags and she bolts.

 

And she makes it.

 

She’s free.

 

***

 

Karone is completely lost.

 

Tears are streaming down her face. She’s afraid and alone and hates it, and doesn’t know why she’s crying, but she is. She ends up sitting on a log weeping.

 

“Miss?”

 

Karone looks up.

 

It’s one of the natives of this planet. He speaks their dialect, but Karone knows it. “Are you lost?” The man continues, doubtless wondering what this pale, crying girl is doing so far from home.

 

Karone nods. “I live in the village of the two rivers,” She adds.

 

The man looks surprised. “That’s a day’s journey from here. How’d you get this far out? Never mind, you must come home with me. My wife can take care of you.” He holds out a hand, and Karone takes it willingly.

 

The man takes her to his home, and his wife hustles her to the river to bathe like a child. Karone doesn’t mind. She’s happier with someone to talk to, knowing where she is again, and she laughs with the couple’s little daughters like they’re her own sisters.

 

They wake up the next day to rain.

 

It’s a day when they can catch a special kind of fish. Most of the villages around here throw themselves into semi-ceremonial work as soon as the rain starts, and this village is no different. They ask Karone to watch the children, and she gladly agrees. She likes spending time with them.

 

It’s midmorning when the knock comes at the door. Karone asks, “Who can that be?”, and the children laugh at her accent.

 

It’s Astronema.

 

Karone slams the door in her face.

 

The next knock comes at midday. Karone doesn’t open the door at all.

 

Finally the last knock comes at evening, along with a grumpy, “Karone, open the door, I don’t have anywhere to put the fish.” Karone is curious enough to open it, and sure enough, Astronema comes in soaking wet with a basket of fish. She plants it on the kitchen table and looks over Karone.

 

Karone feels shy, suddenly. She’s surrounded by eager children in a hut with a dirt floor, wearing native clothes of animal skin and tending the hearth fire, and she _belongs_ here, in a way that she only felt when she commanded spaceships--

 

That memory seems _weird_ all of a sudden. Like something is wrong with it.

 

“You look...happy.” Astronema says. Cautiously.

 

Karone nods.

 

“I miss that.”

 

Karone wants to shout back a retort, but she can’t think of one. She just bends down and shoos the children away, off to play with their toys. When she straightens up, she asks, “Are you going to tell me I’ll turn into you eventually, so I might as well give up now?”

 

“That’s Snow White.” Astronema tells her. She doesn’t seem bothered by it. “I liked it too. But no. We’re not Snow White.”

 

“What if we are?” Karone asks. She feels very childish today, and a bit afraid, and there’s no memories of fear and survival to soothe her. “What if you’re meant to kill me and I can’t stop you without making you dance in red-hot shoes?”

 

Astronema smiles wryly and jerks a thumb at the fish basket.

 

Karone doesn’t understand for a second, but the knowledge seeps in. She can’t explain it, not with words, but...but the fish, they mean something. The work they represent, the time Astronema took to gather them the old-fashioned way.

 

“You’re not here to kill me?”

 

Astronema shakes her head.

 

Karone believes her. “Then...what _do_ you want?”

 

“To reunite.” Astronema says. “We aren’t true alter-egos. Staying apart like this will hurt us.” Astronema hesitates. “I don’t like what I’m turning into.”

 

“But you’re _Astronema_!” Karone half-laughs. “I thought you _liked_ going around and killing people?”

 

Astronema looks at Karone.

 

Karone doesn’t fully understand. But she can see it. Darkness, complex darkness born of something bad, something complicated, that created a complicated woman.

 

She’s meant to balance _that_ out?

 

“What...do you want to do?” Karone asks.

 

Astronema shrugs. “Save the world. Same as you.” She says it like it’s easy, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “We are the same person, you know. We’re just a little...estranged. But we can fix that.”

 

Karone doesn’t know if she _wants_ to fix it. She does. But she doesn’t know. It’s an odd feeling.

 

Astronema opens her arms, spreading her palms out. Karone takes the offered hug. Astronema stiffens, and Karone steps back, wondering if maybe...but then Astronema hugs her back, stiffly, but still a hug. Karone feels better at that.

 

“How do we do it?” She asks.

 

Astronema smiles and produces an apple. “Got this out of the mirror monster. I think it likes Snow White too.”

 

Karone hesitates, but it’s the story. So she picks up the apple and takes a bite.

 

It tastes crisp and fresh.

 

Astronema takes it and bites into the other side, chewing and swallowing slowly, a lady enjoying her meal…

 

...the memories start to fade in and half and half start to become one and…

 

...Karone is left standing alone in the home, her apple vanished.

 

She stares at her own hands.

 

Part of her was happy, and joyful, and everything she’d ever hoped for. But part of her had gone and gotten the fish. Had done the hard work of good, and done it as easily as breathing. Just like her child-self.

 

She...didn’t feel as split, anymore.

 

One of the children tugged at her skirt, demanding her attention. Karone crouched down to listen. It wasn’t exactly a change in her world.

 

But it was a start.

 

 


End file.
